ILaka : What is

ILaka : An unalienation project

For long I have felt the effects of alienation, the idea of being stripped from a sense of belonging to your work, to your place of living and other human beings in general. However I feel this feeling is shared by a lot of people in today's times. You may be around many people but there is no sense of connection that they share with you. There is a trend of sharing group pictures these days, but most often the group does not really exist, it is just many individuals juxtaposed in physical space. 

Everyone these days is fighting their own battles, trying to find that next shiny object that will shine light on the darkness and smallness of their lives. Many are not aware that no shiny object can fill the corners of their heart that are empty and cannot be filled with any object.

Human beings need to feel connected to others to feel complete, we are indeed social animals. When I see people working or fighting for a cause, the feeling of confidence that they have about life or about their fellow humans is at a completely different level. Like imagine the bond between soldiers going in for a war, or freedom fighters united for overthrowing an evil regime. When such people click a group picture you see that it is indeed a cohesive group. When I see pics of people in a corporate get together/office outing, I see how these people could not care less if one them even ceases to exist, some may even be a bit happy in case the individual in question posed some kind of a threat them. There are no two ways about it, most urban dwellers live in a highly self centered framework in which they need to fend for themselves, they don't expect others to be bothered about their issues while at the same time don't bother about issues others might be facing. Of course to feel happy when celebrating you need people, so you have a number of party friends, who will come and spend happy times with you but not much more. This is not a statement or indictment of people as being low lives but just a description of what people have come to. It has more to do with the system, the system of consumerism in which we are expected to consume more and more while at the same time work harder and harder to keep up with societies increasing demand to consume. The net result is that although we have far more to consume than we ever had, there is no time we have to enjoy the fruits of our labor. 

Consumerism in essence makes people become selfish self centered, however human beings are at their core social and social not in a transactional manner like what is happening right now, but social in a more generally connected way. They have immense ability to feel the pain of others, to feel good by alleviating someone's pain etc. I need to look into references from research in psychology where it has been clearly proved that human beings are uncomfortable being selfish. 

The idea of ILaka has had these thoughts behind it when I conceived of it. The goal of iLaka is to make people more connected to people around them, to feel more secure about people around them, to feel like they are living among their own rather than those who either don't care, or are jealous or just party friends.

The rise in mental health issues is directly correlated with the rise in individualism and consumerism, and ILaka's aim is to offset the tendency of consumerism and of individualism.

Some of the ways by which this can be facilitated :

1. Tea spots to convert into discussion hubs, where people can seek help from their neighbours, talk about burning issues of the day or just help in staying well informed about the world around them.

2. Fun, non competitive events to connect people from the neighborhood, like collective morning or evening walks while talking around some topic.

3. Open fairs, where interesting ideas like experiencing products of tech like drones and AR VR etc can be experienced, or a nostalgia booth where people can revisit their child hood or experience scientific phenomena uncovered by the use of science toys or instruments.

4. Commerce around the community, like organized services and repairs, information about local vendors, local deliveries etc.

5. Organizing local middle class folks to help people from poorer backgrounds, by way of financial donations, things that are not of use anymore, helping poorer kids learn, etc. This is very important for the middle classes to heal themselves, not everyone has the time to find an NGO to go to and volunteer with them. However if they can help someone from an underpreviliged background with the framework being there for them and them not having to worry too much about logistical issues, they would be more than happy to do so and heal themselves.

This are the broad motivations and ideas behind the concept that i call ILaka